


The Threads of an Old Life

by withcoffeespoons



Category: Marble Hornets
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Asexual Character, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, M/M, Mental Health Issues, Nightmares, Panic Attacks, Phobias, Possibly Unrequited Love, Post-Series, Scars, Suicidal Thoughts
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-08-16
Updated: 2014-11-03
Packaged: 2018-02-13 07:58:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 6
Words: 6,076
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2143161
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/withcoffeespoons/pseuds/withcoffeespoons
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>AU post-Entry #80.</p><p>Jay and Tim survive, but after all they’ve been through, how can they go back to living?</p><p>Neither of them are very good at people, and they’re only marginally good at each other.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

Tim never thought there would be days he would consider himself the stronger one.

When they were in the thick of it, Jay had always been so determined, constantly on the go, searching for the next step, the next answer, even if it was dangerous. Even if he might not like what he found.

Even from the beginning, Tim had always just wanted out.

He never thought they’d make it, and he owed it all to Jay, the only person he had left, the only person left to care about him anymore.

So on the days when Jay couldn’t even get out of bed, Tim took care of him.

It started not long after it all ended. Jay stopped looking for work. Stopped getting out of bed. Stopped talking. Stopped eating. Sometimes for a few hours, sometimes for days on end.

Tim brought him food, even though Jay rarely touched it. Tim usually took it back into the kitchen and ate it himself, unable to bear the thought of it going to waste.

When he came home from his first job, bagging at the supermarket in town, he brought Jay yesterday’s local small town newspaper, stolen from the recycling bin out back—it was all middle school accomplishments and environmental activists and high school sports teams and DUIs.

He read the inane headlines and the highlights as if they were the most interesting things in the world (and in a way, after all they had been through, wasn’t mundane life rich with new meaning?), and Jay would laugh sometimes. Those were the best moments, when Tim could eke out a genuine spark of laughter from him. Most of the time he would just lay, staring blankly at the paper in Tim’s hands, but when Tim stopped reading, when he folded the paper back up and moved to step away, Jay would reach out and tug on his sleeve like a child asking for one more story before bed.

"That’s it for today, buddy," Tim told him. "We’ll find out on Thursday if Farmer John’s tomatoes passed organic coding, don’t worry."

Then Tim left for his second job as a clerk at the convenience store a mile down the road, selling pizza and cigarettes to old men and teenagers until the sun went down and he closed up the store, shaking off the stale breath of the local drunks as he shrugged his jacket on and smacked out a cigarette of his own for the walk back.

Most of the time Jay was still in bed when Tim got in, staring at the ceiling, the walls, the doorway (never out the windows). Jay barely slept. It was enough to frighten Tim some nights, to see the dark circles smudging around his eyes, the body aches, the images that haunted both of them, that he was never sure were nightmares or hallucinations, but which made Jay hiss to himself, "Not real, not there."

They’d shared a bed since their early hotel days, when it became cheaper to get a single, when they gravitated toward each other in the night. It wasn’t like that, not once. It was all habit and need and the comforting sound of each other’s breathing, the accidental reaffirming brush of skin. It was the only way to be sure they were both still there, both still alive.

Sometimes Tim did find him asleep. It happened so rarely that every time, Tim checked to make sure Jay was still breathing, that he didn’t leave him alone. It was the one thing they had anymore, and he fought so hard to hold onto it.

When he did sleep, he had nightmares. Tim had learned early on that trying to wake Jay only scared him more, gave him something physical upon which to pile his fears. So when his cries and murmurs were enough to wake Tim, there was nothing for him to do except watch, helpless, and whisper empty comfort to Jay’s tensely drawn muscles.

It was exhausting, and Tim thought, one day, the worry would drag him down, too, that he couldn’t possibly be well enough to care for Jay and himself. And what would happen then, he wondered.

Until then, he decided, he would fight hard enough for the both of them.

After all, he owed everything to Jay. It was the least he could do. It was the closest thing to caring that Tim had felt in a long time. That was worth holding onto.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **THIS CHAPTER HAS SIGNIFICANT TRIGGER WARNINGS FOR SELF-HARM.**
> 
> Please avoid if you find the physical description or emotional content of self-harm and associated thoughts triggering or disturbing.
> 
> Be good to yourselves.

They’ve never talked about it. About what happened, about what they had to do.

Tim would argue about choice, about alternatives. Jay’s conscience couldn’t take that, though, and Tim knew that.

It wasn't a rule, their mutual silence on the matter; they never discussed it enough to even establish that much. Jay didn’t talk much, and Tim didn’t see the point in hashing over the things they sometimes remembered and sometimes didn’t.

Some memories, Tim thought he had only because he’d seen them playing out on tape. They played through Tim’s mind, too, every night. Every choice that led them here, every mistake, every loss.

That was usually when he took his pills and went to sleep.

He was better now. Not well, but better. He took his medication like a good boy and stayed away from parks and large bodies of water.

He was honest enough with himself to know that there were days he hated Jay, and that they would keep coming. He hated what he’d become. Where Jay had once been inquisitive, dedicated, and desperate, he was now apathetic and disengaged. And Tim was responsible for him, responsible for feeding him, for making sure he showered, for keeping him from wasting away entirely.

On his darker days, Tim hated that Jay got him out of there alive, but not once did he turn the sentiment onto Jay.

He only had to throw a knife away once.

The air had gotten too heavy, the house too hot, stifling and claustrophobic. He’d forgotten his medication that day, and sometimes, old habits died hard.

Jay had been sleeping, so he did it in the kitchen.

Tim had felt nothing when he did it. Not sadness, not the cold, bone-deep ache of loneliness, not even the burn of the blade across his skin.

It used to be satisfying.

It used to be painful, the best reminder that he was still real. If nothing else, he could trust the pain.

He dropped the knife into the kitchen trash and held a towel to his arm until the bleeding stopped. He taped the bandage to his skin, a strip of white nearly five inches down the length of his arm to remind him of his mistake.

And it was a mistake, he knew that as soon as he settled into bed beside Jay and felt cold fingers—how was he so cold all the time, even when it was a hundred degrees out, he ran so cold—chasing after Tim’s skin, begging for the grounding sense of touch. Tim had pulled his arm back. He didn’t want Jay to see.

He finally felt something—shame.

* * *

The cut healed—slowly.

It was so different, so strange. The marks on his skin didn’t disappear anymore, gone after a few days like they were never there in the first place.

Tim dragged his finger down the center of the bandage, soreness radiating out in an insolent throbbing. He peeled the tape from his skin. The way it pulled and snagged was almost worse than the cut itself.

There was a long smear of blood on the inside of the gauze, but his arm had scabbed over, red like an accusation.

Jay stumbled into the bathroom. It took him a moment to comprehend, but his expression sobered into realization before Tim had the chance to react. He reached out, grabbed Tim tightly by the wrist, and stared.

Tim felt his arm shaking in Jay’s bony hand. No one had ever _looked_ at him quite like this, and Tim couldn’t decipher the expression on Jay’s face, only the shaking sob of breath that sounded impossibly like an apology.

Jay looked up at Tim with tears in his eyes, the most lucid he’d been in weeks. He said nothing, but held onto Tim’s wrist, looking back down at the line of scabs dotted down his arm.

He let Tim go and pissed in the toilet while Tim brushed his teeth and determinedly resisted the urge to scrub at the scabs until they bled open again. Tim watched Jay in the mirror, afraid of what he saw in his own reflection. Because the way Jay had looked at the scar curdled in Tim’s stomach.

Like he was sorry.

Like he’d put it there with his own hand.

Like he’d rather drag it down his own arm instead.

* * *

Jay never asked why, and Tim was grateful. He didn’t want to tell Jay it had anything to do with him, but he didn’t want to lie to him, either.

_No more secrets_. It was more than words these days.

Lying in bed, facing the ceiling, he did ask, "Just the once?" and Tim said, "Yeah."

"What about Before?"

The never spoke about what happened, but there was always Before.

Tim didn’t hesitate, just bit off the brittle words, "There were a few."

And he explained that he’d woken up more times than he could remember, covered in blood without a single mark on him, no sense of the time that had passed. And the times he came to, vomiting half-digested pills, shaking and shivering, but achingly alive.

Jay didn’t have to ask why he did it because he knew.

He reached across Tim’s body and took his wrist in his hand again, fingers loose, his touch gentle. He looked up at Tim like he wanted to see the old scars, too, the ones that never existed, that littered only Tim’s memories, not his body.

All it took was another pass of his own fingers across the jagged edge of skin for him to realize what this meant.

This was new.

Skinned knees always disappeared and sometimes his heart stopped beating, but it had always started up again.

Before.

Something gentled in Jay’s eyes, and Tim found himself looking away, down at the scar on his arm, at his ragged cuticles. Jay’s fingers crept into his view, sandwiching Tim’s hand between his. Tim saw them more than he felt them.

Jay had realized what hadn’t occurred to Tim until he mopped his own blood off the kitchen floor—Tim was just as fragile and impermanent as anyone else now. As Jay was.

He slept facing Tim that night.

They were done talking, but Jay watched as Tim felt himself drifting into sleep, kept his fingers on Tim’s wrist like he was feeling for a pulse.


	3. Chapter 3

One night after that, Tim broke.

Something itched beneath his skin like a spreading frost. He couldn’t remember the last time he had felt quite so alive, and the infinite fragility of it crinkled in his brain.

He packed an overnight bag, grabbed his keys, and drove in circles all night to get away from what was inevitably inside his own mind. After so many years of running, he thought, at what cost could he bear to keep going?

Even as he broke the town lines for the third time that night, he knew why he couldn’t. Jay. The revelation had been a long time coming, and to meet it head-on at last felt like an anticlimax. He was waiting, as he turned left this time, instead of right, for the thought to weigh on him like a great chain tying them together. Instead, it came as a relief, as the realization that finally he had something not only worth fighting for, but worth staying for.

He had never had anything worth staying for before.

Before.

He parked outside a gas station he didn’t recognize, and slept. He woke before dawn to the angry rapping of knuckles against his window, and a voice barking, "You can’t stay here!"

He couldn’t remember the way he came, but he followed the signs that pointed south, and pulled into the driveway two hours later, his eyes bloodshot and full of grit. His car was never a good replacement for a bed, and even after weeks spent sleeping in his own backseat when he and Jay had been between odd jobs, nothing beat a nice warm bed.

It was a testament to his exhaustion that it took Tim a moment to realize that Jay wasn’t in the bed.

The bathroom light was on. It caught him like a hook to the throat, and he suddenly couldn’t find his breath.

He wasn’t sure how his legs carried him to the door, his entire body shaking with fear of what he might find on the other side. After all they had both gone through for years, this was what frightened him the most.

He found Jay shivering and half-naked on the floor, and there was still that fear, that nagging sense that something was terribly wrong, but Jay was _alive_. A bottle of medicine sat in the sink, bright orange like a warning, and Tim couldn’t breathe properly until he had nearly ripped the medicine cabinet off the wall, making certain that the pills remained untouched, that Jay was going to be all right.

He sank to his knees beside him and wrapped his arms around the smaller man’s frigid skin. Jay sobbed against him, dry tears that made Tim’s throat ache in sympathy. "Come on," he urged, shifting his own legs under him, pulling himself up, and Jay along with him. "There you go."

Jay said nothing until they were in bed. Tim had forced a long-sleeved t-shirt over Jay’s head, his own heart pounding like an admonishment.

Tim lay pressed up against Jay’s back, nothing accidental or furtive about it. He wrapped one warm arm around Jay’s middle, and felt the slow rhythm of his breathing.

"You left," Jay said. He didn’t even have the decency to sound pissed about it, his voice a drawn neutral drawl, impassive, but somehow it was the most present Jay had sounded in weeks.

"I’m sorry," Tim said because he had no other words to say. He had no excuse, no reason to have left like that, to have abandoned Jay when he knew how he needed him. "I’m sorry," he repeated, then again—over and over and he almost couldn’t hear Jay over his own self-flagellation.

"You came back."

Jay sounded surprised.

Tim kissed his shoulder and nodded. "Yeah." He didn’t promise never to leave again. He’s been on the wrong side of broken promises. An echo of his mother’s voice, _I’ll be back in a few days, Timmy_. But he told Jay, "Yeah, I did."

He didn’t explain why, but Jay wasn’t looking for explanations. He wasn’t looking for the kind of reassurance that Tim might have in his place. He knew of the thin barrier between Jay’s reality and his nightmares, between memory and dream. The only reassurance Jay needed was the acknowledgment of what was real.

This was real, Tim thought. The warmth between their bodies and the sun filtering in through the curtains and the smell of gasoline and sweat and soap.

Tim felt delicate, like his own bones were made of glass, but that was nothing to the bird bones that Jay had always possessed, and the fearless way he had always held himself despite that fact. Tim didn’t know what it was like to be fragile, but he hoped that Jay could teach him how to be strong.

He fell asleep with more sorries on his lips, and the feeling of Jay’s fingers over his own, both men feeling the moment the rhythmic rise and fall of their chests synchronized.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter contains trigger warnings for suicidal ideation.
> 
> Please avoid if you find this content triggering or disturbing.
> 
> Be good to yourselves.

Jay had known it was coming. He had been waiting for it, for Tim to leave him. He just hadn’t expected it to happen when it did.

It had been like the shattering of the screen from which Jay had been watching his life pass by. It had taken him hours to really notice, to realize, and it had been the absence of Tim’s toothbrush, of all the idiotic things, that had really let it sink in: Tim was gone.

And Jay had thought about it, had stared his own reflection in the face for what felt like days as he tried to work up the courage to reach for an orange bottle. He had watched the haunted shift in his eyes as he pulled the cabinet open and grasped the first bottle he could find.

> _Timothy Wright_
> 
> _Take 1 tablet by mouth daily._

The pills rattled in the sink as Jay dropped to his knees.

Tim had left his pills.

Either he was coming back, Jay thought, or…

_Or this was something Tim intended never to return from_.

His words had been so stark, the frank way he had described the things he had done which would have killed any other man. Which would, they both had come to realize, kill him now.

And then Jay really would be alone.

But then Tim _had_ come home, had rushed in and hissed obscenities in Jay’s ears as he checked him over, as he urged him to stand. Jay tried to say, _I’m fine_ , but the words were stuck behind the shock of Tim’s hands on his skin and his voice, desperate but alive and _right there_.

Jay had been lost for so long, but Tim’s stunt had been to him as the magnetic snap of a compass. He could no longer fit himself behind the screen of his own eyes.

He woke the next morning and followed Tim to the kitchen. Ate the food Tim placed in front of him.

He spent the hours Tim was at work looking at postings for odd jobs—it was like walking an old path, the only thing missing was the camera, long since destroyed.

Tim came home that night and put Chinese take-out on the table, an old favorite between the two of them, and Jay ate as much as he could manage without making himself sick. They talked animatedly about everything that didn’t matter—the New York Yankees were losing, Tim’s co-worker was stealing literal peanuts, and it was supposed to rain tomorrow.

They went to bed together, and he considered that he should find it strange or uncomfortable, the way their bodies found each other in the night, but it was a comfort unlike any other he had afforded himself, a reminder that he wasn’t alone.

* * *

Jay woke up screaming.

His voice was hoarse and dry, and Tim had already ducked into the bathroom to bring him a glass of water. Jay gratefully swallowed it down, willing his body to catch up to his mind and realize he was in no danger.

One of the things Jay liked most about Tim was that he never asked the wrong questions. He never asked if Jay regretted it all, or what he’d be doing if none of it had happened, or why he had stuck with him through to the end.

Jay returned him the favor, though Tim held onto his landmines. Where Jay’s had names, Tim’s were written into the exhaustion on his face.

They had rules. Nothing they had ever discussed out loud, but a mutual understanding that some things were eternally private.

So when Tim asked, "What was it?" he knew something had changed.

Jay fought down the sickly taste of panic and swallowed another mouthful of lukewarm water. "The usual," he managed.

Tim shifted, the covers rustling in the dim pre-dawn light. Jay could tell he was watching him, even without looking. He could feel his eyes on him, and he wasn’t sure he liked it. "Tell me?" Tim asked. "Please."

Jay took a deep breath and set the glass on the bedside table. He shifted down until he was covered up to his shoulders. He rolled to face the other man. Tim was propped up on one elbow, his hair sticking out in all kinds of directions, which would have been hilarious if Tim weren’t looking at him so intently, like this mattered, like it mattered more than any other nightmare Jay had ever had over the years. "Why?" Jay asked. "What does it matter?"

Something changed on Tim’s face, like Jay had landed a blow. "Never mind," he muttered, shifting under the covers again, pulling them up to his chin like armor.

The sight made something in Jay’s chest jerk and whirr, and it was the most he’d felt in weeks. "I dreamt about Jessica," he sighed, and he could feel the tension rolling off Tim beside him. Jay didn’t talk about Jessica. Her name was loaded with all the guilt and self-sacrificial notions that ran through Jay’s mind. Jay knew the Jessica in his memories was far from the same Jessica who had once existed, her image built into a symbol, not a person, and all the more frightening for it.

"It’s getting kind of fuzzy," Jay continued, "but she was still alive." His voice cracked on the word. There were answers he would never get, and Jessica was one of them. "She—her hair, it dragged me toward that—that _thing_."

It was cruel that dream imagery was a lot more ridiculous in the waking world, a hundred times more terrifying behind your eyelids. The thing responsible for them, for Jessica, for Alex and everything else—they never named it, never deliberated what it was because they knew what it was. It was a nightmare in the waking world.

"No matter how much I fought or shouted to her, she wouldn’t stop. She just had this, this smile on her face."

"It wasn’t your fault," Tim said, and Jay turned to him angrily, a frown etched into his face. There had been a time when Tim wouldn’t have argued against Jay’s self-flagellation. He knew he’d been pretty fucked up recently, but he didn’t need to be handled with kid gloves.

"I thought I could depend on you to be honest with me."

"Yeah, you can," Tim insisted. "And if you want me to say it’s your fault, tough shit, because I think we both know better by now." A line of tension traced Tim’s voice. "Because if we want to go back down that road again, I’ve got miles ahead of you, Jay."

Jay’s mouth clicked shut.

"It was just a dream. Go back to sleep," Tim said. He rolled onto his side, facing away from Jay.

They slept with a foot of cold air between them.


	5. Chapter 5

Neither of them were very good at people. And truth was, they were only marginally good at each other.

The next morning, Tim apologized for pushing while he poured the coffee, and Jay apologized for lashing out as he dug out the brown sugar for his oatmeal, and neither of them made mention of it again because they needed each other more than they wanted to hold onto the little things that pissed them off.

Tim left for work, and the for the first time in months, Jay sat in front of the computer and set his fingers to the keys. Jay had wanted to be a writer, Before. He’d been attracted to the power of creation, of control over the world—at least in his imagination. It had come to him as a great comfort in high school, a million years ago.

Tim had been surprised when he first read Jay’s work. "This is good," he’d observed quietly, like he’d been surprised. It didn’t bother Jay; it had still been a compliment. "Doesn’t it just dredge up old bullshit?" he had asked.

Jay had shrugged. Sometimes it did. He’d met Alex in his Writing for Film course. He’d—apparently—worked on the writing for Marble Hornets at one point in time.

He didn’t remember enough for it to drag him back down. The feelings it did stir inside him were a reminder that he did, indeed, still feel.

He spent the afternoon typing out a vivid acid trip nightmare he was glad wasn’t his. But the lost, tortured look in Jessica’s eyes haunted him, and the words came to him like breath.

He lost time, but it wasn’t like it used to be. This time was a willing sacrifice which he exchanged for other worlds, and characters who gave him a life away from the one he lived. It was fiction except when it wasn’t, but only he and Tim knew the truth.

When he stepped way from the computer, hours later, he paid a visit to the bathroom and slapped together food that could have been a meal. Were it not for Tim, it would have felt like a farce of real life.

Jay never quite knew what to do with the feelings of _almost_. Of not-exactly-normal, and too-familiar. Tim shook them off at work. He buried them under his efforts to keep them both fed and their bills paid, and Jay felt perpetually indebted to him.

But when he came home that night, and through the duration of the day after that, he watched Jay with an odd expression, like he wanted to say something, like the words lingered just on the tip of his tongue, refusing to manifest. That felt familiar, too, Jay thought. The secrets between them—though Jay still heard Tim’s voice in his mind, _no more secrets_ , relieved and desperate.

"What aren’t you telling me?" he asked, picking at his stir fry. It was nice to be eating at the table again, to actually have the energy and the drive to get out of bed every day. It was still hard, sometimes, but that was why they had stayed. They were stronger together than they ever were apart.

Tim paused, his fork halfway to his mouth. A carrot fell back onto the plate. "What do you mean?"

"I mean," Jay said, skewering a floret of broccoli, "the last few days: what’s changed?"

"You’re doing better," Tim said.

Jay scowled. "Yes, thank you, I’m so glad one of us is keeping track of my mental health. I might have missed that."

Tim’s mouth gaped for a quick second, like his retort wanted to leap out, but he physically bit down on his lip, pressing the skin white and raw.

"I’m sorry, I just…you’re acting like…" Like he used to. Before he trusted Jay, before Jay trusted _him_. That was a long time ago.

Tim’s chair scraped along the floor as he piled the dirty dishes in his arms. "It’s nothing, Jay," he said, turning to the sink. Jay almost didn’t hear him over the running water as Tim reached for the sponge. "It’ll take care of itself."

"Like your arm?" Jay asked coldly. They hadn’t talked about it since that night, but Jay had watched the skin scab and heal over, leaving a near-invisible pink line down Tim’s arm. It was only there if you knew to look.

"Or your joyride the other night?" Jay continued. "What drove you off all night?" he finally asked, the question burning through him. "I thought you were gone—I thought that was it, that you’d—you’d given up on me." Jay clenched his jaw against the raw emotion battering its way out. He felt a tightness behind his eyes, and he willed himself not to cry. "I wouldn’t blame you," he uttered in a strangled small voice.

Tim was frozen, the water running hot enough to billow steam down the stream, the water overflowing the bowl in Tim’s hands.

Jay found himself across the room in a blink, tugging the bowl out of Tim’s still hands. "Jesus, Tim, you’re gonna burn yourself." He switched off the water and reached for Tim’s hand.

Tim flinched away.

"I was just checking."

"I’m fine," he snapped. "I wasn’t giving—" He cut himself short. "I thought about it," he admitted.

It hurt to hear it—more than Jay expected it to, like a burn, it stung sharply then radiated into a dull ache.

Tim reached for his forearm, rubbing the pad of his thumb unconsciously along the thin scar. "I thought about leaving and—and getting out." His voice faltered.

When they had let themselves dream, they’d always called it Getting Out. It had sounded so much simpler than it ever was, like they were trapped in some kind of abusive relationship.

The comparison made Jay’s chest ache, everything so dramatically uncertain like the floor beneath him had shifted under his feet.

"I figured a few things out that night," Tim said, "and one of those things was that…you’re worth sticking around for." He didn’t look Jay in the eye as he said it, but Jay could tell he meant it. It left Tim’s voice raw and naked.

Jay could feel the trickle of relief accompanying the surprise he tried to tamp down.

"Okay?" Tim asked, sounding suddenly hesitant, afraid that Jay would say no.

"Yeah," Jay breathed. "Okay."

"Let’s just go to bed," Tim said.

Jay nodded. The dishes could wait until morning.

Tim said no more, seemingly drained of all his words. He just clung to Jay’s body like he might float away.


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter contains a secondhand description of a panic attack.
> 
> Please avoid if you find this content triggering or disturbing.
> 
> Be good to yourselves.

Tim did a good job of avoiding Jay while they were awake. He had work to fall back on, one excuse after another. He’d had practice when they were on the run, exhausted and antagonistic, burning with a fury that came from outside themselves. Avoiding each other had been the best course of action, days of silence peppered with the sound of fingers on keys, or the tinny vibration of sound through Jay’s headphones while he looked over their tapes.

At some point they had fallen in together, joint custody, like maybe they could figure it all out if they just worked together on it. Maybe they could make it through. Never did they say the words; it would have made it so much harder when they tested the bonds, pushed and pulled against each other until they almost snapped under it.

This was different, though, cold and intentional, and Jay couldn’t figure it out. After so much, after the way they held onto each other, the way they relied on each other. The way Jay relied on Tim.

He felt like he was being left out in the cold, and it ached deeper than Tim’s admission.

When they fell asleep, Tim stayed to his side of the bed, his back to Jay. In his sleep, Tim twitched back toward him like he was magnetically drawn, his limbs seeking out Jay’s warmth, stirring him faintly from his sleep. When Jay awoke, Tim was always gone, the front door shutting before Jay even left the bed, and Jay was never sure if he’d dreamt up the comfort between them.

It was lonely and maddening and more than once, Jay wondered if there was any point in getting out of bed.

He was so, so close to falling back.

* * *

He left the house a lot these days, unable to stand the quiet anymore. He walked down the main road and back, listening to the passing of cars and dogs and shrieking children. Old habits died hard, and despite the flatness that surrounded—lawns and fields and quiet suburban houses—it didn’t take long for him to fall into the familiar paranoia, turning back at the sound of fluttering leaves, at the dull footsteps behind him—not chasing him, not following, not.

He knew Tim would be home already, the orange sun setting behind the row of houses to his back. He took his time, his steps slow and even.

It was dark by the time he walked through the door. There was a plate of leftover frozen pizza on the stove, still warm. He could hear the shower running, and for a minute, he almost believed it could be a normal night. That maybe Tim would talk to him again.

Then he heard the screaming.

Fear took over instantly. It was almost instinct by now, fight or flight, always at each other’s side. Jay reached for a weapon, took the knife from the counter, and ran to the bathroom. Running away hadn’t been an option for a long time, not when Tim was in danger.

The shower was still running. He could hear through the door Tim’s frightened sobs, stifled cries for help, and Jay couldn’t get the god damn door open. He called Tim’s name, beating the door with his fist like that might help.

Two-handed, he yanked on the knob, begging it to turn. Desperation and luck converged, and the lock popped, the door snapping in.

Tim was curled up on the shower floor, shielding himself from the spray, sobbing quietly into his hands, a hitched cough peppering his cries. Jay rushed to his side, the knife clattering uselessly on the tile floor. He called Tim’s name, tried to coax him out, afraid to reach for him, but he wouldn’t budge.

Jay reached for the water, switched it off, the pipes banging, startled by the force. That got Tim’s attention.

His hair fell limp over his forehead, making him look younger. A breath caught in Jay’s throat at the floating distance in his eyes, his gaze following nothing Jay could see before they found him. Tim gasped a deep, choking breath, coughing and sputtering, all too familiar, with enough force to fold himself over, propped up by his hands.

Relief flooded Jay when he saw no blood, just spit and dingy water, trailing toward the drain.

Tim’s coughing shifted sharply into sobbing, his forehead falling forward onto his folded hands.

This wasn’t the first time Jay had found him like this. Drowning was terrifying—and even worse when it happened slowly over the course of the years Tim suffered. Jay didn’t know how many times Tim found himself actually drowning, only knows of the time he witnessed it on the tape. They’d never talked about it. Jay imagined Tim didn’t remember, either. (Or maybe it was that he’d lost count.)

For the first time, Jay wanted to talk about it. Wanted to ask Tim to share that with him, to share anything with him.

Not that he expected he would, not now.

The first time, back when they were on the road, Tim had locked himself in the bathroom, and Jay had pretended not to hear his screaming, didn’t mention it when he emerged, pale, from the shower.

Jay could feel his heartbeat in his head, rapid and powerless, as he whispered soothing nonsense over the sound of dripping water and Tim’s ragged breathing, quiet reminders that he would be okay, that they made it, that he was there.

Tim shivered, and Jay wasn’t sure if it was the cold or the memories working their way down his spine, but he wrapped a towel around Tim’s shoulders, equally for warmth and modesty. Tim tugged gratefully on its corners, letting it fold around him. He looked up as though he were seeing Jay for the first time, and there was something unreadable in his gaze, something between gratitude and affection and regret. It settled deeply in Jay’s chest, a near imperceptible tug on his ribs he couldn’t explain.

Tim said nothing, just curled deeper into the towel. Water soaked into the knees of Jay’s jeans, but he wouldn’t move from Tim’s side. He reached toward him slowly and combed his fingers through Tim’s wet hair, smoothing it away from his face. He resisted the urge to spill meaningless, empty words into the quiet between them. The soft vulnerability in Tim’s eyes stayed his tongue, and for a second he thought he saw a flash of gratitude.

Neither said anything more. They didn’t talk about the last few days, the last few hours, the last few minutes. They prepared for bed in silence, orbiting each other in the bedroom, slowly drawn by the gravity of their eyelids. Slipping between the sheets, they wordlessly cast aside all the awkwardness of the last week, and Jay pressed against Tim’s back, an arm draped across his soft middle.

Tim snored softly at his touch, bone-deep with exhaustion, and pressed back into Jay’s warmth. Jay wasn’t going to let him go so easily this time.


End file.
